The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from c. 2613 to 2494 BC.[1] It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other countries is documented.

Painted limestone Sphinx of Hetepheres II, possibly the first depiction of a sphinx, she was one of the longest lived members of the fourth dynasty royal family, a daughter of Khufu, she was the wife of Djedefre, and lived into the reign of Shepseskaf

The Fourth Dynasty heralded the height of the pyramid-building age. The relative peace of the Third Dynasty allowed the Dynasty IV rulers the leisure to explore more artistic and cultural pursuits. King Sneferu's building experiments led to the evolution from the mastaba styled step pyramids to the smooth sided “true” pyramids, such as those on the Giza Plateau. No other period in Egypt's history equaled Dynasty IV's architectural accomplishments.[2] Each of the rulers of this dynasty commissioned at least one pyramid to serve as a tomb or cenotaph[citation needed].

It was the second of four dynasties that made up the "Old Kingdom". It has been acknowledged as the most remarkable of all in that isolated period of Egyptian history. It was part of the golden age of Egyptian culture and took place between 2613 and 2494 B.C. King Sneferu, the first king of the fourth dynasty, held territory in ancient Libya to the Sinai Peninsula, and Nubia in the south. It was a successful period and this era is known for its advancement and concentrated government, as seen in the organized building of pyramids and other monuments.

Our understanding of the Old Kingdom comes mainly from these structures and objects discovered in the desert cemeteries of Giza. It is not easy to measure the extent of change or explain the causes since there are not many records from the time. They did not have primitive customs or barbarous habits such as in other countries. An example of this would be that Egyptians did not carry arms when not involved in warfare. Religion and knowledge were where their aspirations lay, and they had little aspiration for war and conquest. They were essentially domestic, fond of art, and social in their manners.[3]

King Sneferu, lauded as "Bringer of Beauty", "Master of All Justice", "Ruler of Lower and Upper Nile", was the first pharaoh of the fourth dynasty and single-handedly marked the climax of the Old Kingdom. He descended from a family in the Middle Kingdom, that lived near the city Hermopolis and most likely, he ascended to the throne by marrying a royal heiress. There still is debate as to who his father was, the credit often being given to Huni, but this cannot be confirmed due to the break in dynasties. His mother, Meresanhk I was either a lesser wife or concubine of Huni which, if it was the latter, would technically not qualify him as having royal blood. Egypt in the third Millennium BC was, by all accounts, a land of peace and plenty. Elites commonly ate fattened ducks and geese and wore fine white linens—when they wore clothes at all. Snefru had a very high opinion of himself, proving so when he floated in a boat down the Nile covered only with fishnets.

Until his reign, an Egyptian king was thought to be a worldly incarnation of Horus, obtaining total deification exclusively in death. Snefru was the first king proclaim that he was the embodiment of Ra, another sun deity. Khufu, would pursue his father's path, taking the name, Son of the Sun God.

Egypt, in general, was ruled by two schools of thought, legal authority and traditional authority. Legal authority constituted the king governing, not the people directly, but viziers and nomarches, all posted at different positions. Snefru made use of this by having several posts for trade, military practices, and even slaveholders. Traditional authority was that the deities gave a king divine right to rule as he pleased. At the heart of it, the fourth dynasty Egyptian government became organized so that only the king could direct traditional authority.

The Bent Pyramid was Sneferu's first attempt at building a perfect structure, but it slopes and eventually bends to a lower angle, giving the structure a squished look. His Red Pyramid is widely considered the first true pyramid and earned its name from the reddish tint in the limestone used. The Red Pyramid was considered the first pyramid, approximately 150 years after the structures built by King Djoser.[4] The Red Pyramid was the first to be given a solid foundation so that it was stable enough for a taller building. He is also said to be responsible for a series of pyramids built in Seila. He commissioned a total of three pyramids, but there are records that point to a fourth. Although he did not construct any of the pyramids at Giza, he is known as the king who moved the most stone and brick. A lot of Sneferu's political expeditions were to other countries to secure two things: a substantial labor force and access to a large store of materials. He traveled to Nubia and Libya for these things. His incursions in these areas allowed Sneferu to secure a large labor force, so large, in fact, that it caused huge devastation to the raided countries. He also needed cattle and other food sources to provide to the people building his pyramids. By the end of his military efforts, he managed to capture 11,000 prisoners and 13,100 heads of cattle.

Khufu, Sneferu's successor—though it is unclear whether he was the biological son of Sneferu—was a widely-known king. He is still known very well in present-day media, being featured in movies, novels, and television shows. His fame stems from his pyramid on the northeastern plateau at Giza, where he was buried. His mortuary temple was built on the northern end of the pyramid, which is no longer accessible due to ravages by grave robbers. Only three-dimensional reliefs have been recovered and have lasted into modern day, including many limestone busts and clay figurines. Khufu's activities in and out of Egypt are not well documented (except his architecture work) and was highly romanticized by the Ancient Greeks. These Greeks felt that Khufu was a wicked man who offended the deities and forced his subjects into slavery.[5] But, why was this? Khufu, as the son of Snerfru, was believed to be illegitimate and therefore unworthy of the throne. Even if he was Snefru's true son, he did very little to expand the country of Egypt and failed to follow his father's footsteps. There are only a few records that stated he was involved in any political activities. The best guess historians can make is that there is evidence of construction of a harbor on the coast of the Red Sea that was excavated by John Gardner Wilkinson and James Burton in 1823.

Djedef is credited by historians with a reign of eight years. Not much is known of Djedef, including his inconclusive lineage. It is possible that he is Khufu's son or that he was Khufu's brother. It is widely suggested that he is the son of a lesser queen who murdered the rightful heir to the throne and Djedef's biological brother, the crown prince Kawab. Djedef chose to build his pyramid several kilometers north of Giza, creating speculation that there was a family feud that caused Djedef to want to be far away from Khufu's tomb. A more favorable conclusion was that Djedef chose to be buried closer to Heliopolis|Iunu]], the center of the cult of Ra. His pyramid also features a statue of his wife, Hetepheres II, in the form of a sphinx. She was a daughter of Khufu and had been the wife of Kawab. It is sometimes suggested that this was the first true sphinx, although there is debate about the sphinx at Giza that was credited to Khafre. She became the longest living royal member of the dynasty, living into the reign of Shepseskaf.

Khafre, son of Khufu, succeeding his supposed brother, Djedefre, after his short reign. He chose to build his pyramid close to his father, matching it in style and being almost as large. At the front of the pyramid causeway lies the Great Sphinx that is said to bear his features. There is still debate on whether his Sphinx was erected before Djedefre's.[6] Khafre's sphinx was well-known and closer to his subjects, making it harder to determine which was built first due to biased record keeping.

Like many kings in this dynasty, his reign is uncertain, being projected for more than 63 years but it can certainly be an exaggeration. Menkaure succeeded his father, King Khufu. His pyramid is the third and smallest of those at Giza and is known as Netjer-er-Menkaure, which translates into "Menakure is Divine". There was a sarcophagus found within the pyramid, that is approximately eight feet in length and three feet in height, made of basalt. Like many of the previous pyramids, Menkaure's was not inscribed, the interior having no record keeping of any kind.

Shepseskaf is generally accepted as the last king of the Fourth Dynasty, succeeding Menkaure. There is no conclusive evidence of who his mother is, though it is believed that he was the son of a minor queen. Who his wife was, also is unknown. Sheseskaf broke the chain of pyramid building by the previous five kings. Instead of a triangular pyramid, he chose to construct a rectangular block, commonly known as the Mastabat al-Fir’aun ("Pharaoh's Bench").[7] In like fashion, however, little script was found inside his tomb and he was buried in very simple terms.

The identification of this king is not resolved.[8] Several ancient lists of kings have survived. They do not agree, however, and none of them may be considered complete. The Turin King List has a lacuna between Khafre and Menkaure, where the author had listed a king who reigned between these two pharaohs. Unfortunately, the name of the king and length of the reign are completely lost in the lacuna.[9] The Saqqara Tablet also notes a king between Khafre and Menkaure, but here too, the name is lost.[10] Some authorities have equated this king with Bikheris, on Manetho's list, who could correspond to the Egyptian name Baka or Bakare.

Perhaps the most intriguing evidence of the fourth dynasty is the status of Khentkaus I, also known as Khentykawes. She was a daughter of Menkaure and her tomb was built along the Menkaure causeway. She may have ruled as king.

Her tomb is a large mastaba tomb, with another off-center mastaba placed above it. The second mastaba could not be centered over her primary mastaba because of the free, unsupported, space in the rooms below.

On a granite doorway leading into her tomb, Khentkaus I is given titles that may be read either as mother of two kings of upper and lower Egypt, as mother of the king of upper and lower Egypt and king of upper and lower Egypt, or, as one scholar reads it, king of upper and lower Egypt and mother of two kings of upper and lower Egypt.

Furthermore, her depiction on this doorway also gives her the full trappings of kingship, including the false beard of the king. This depiction and the title given have led some Egyptologists to suggest that she reigned as king near the end of the fourth dynasty.

Her tomb was finished in a characteristic niche style of architecture, however, the niches were later filled in with a smooth casing of limestone.

The Age of the Pyramid refers to the fact that the Fourth Dynasty was the time when most of the well-known pyramids were built, which include those at Giza. King Sneferu was the first king to express an interest in funerary rites and tombs, which led him to the planning of the largest pyramid at Egypt. His first pyramids were called the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid. The "Age of the Pyramid" was not just about the building of large and easily recognizable structures, but also a change in funerary practices and rituals. This includes the burying of elites in large structures and the use of extensive mummification.

The Fourth Dynasty is where we truly see a shift in religious practices where worship of the Sun was commonplace. The Cult of Ra grew in size, going back to the fact that Djedef's tomb was built closer to the center of worship in what the Ancient Greeks called Heliopolis.[11] It was a delta city near contemporary Cairo that had been occupied since the predynastic times, whose ancient Egyptian name was I͗wnw or Iunu and meant the pillars.

During the era when centralization of the nation's material, organic, and human resources began to develop, a relationship of the king to the deities became unchallenged and kings began carving their names into statues and monuments that previously had been reserved for deities. This speaks to a type of god complex on part of the kings. Khafre's famous statue, where a falcon was incorporated into his headgear, equated the king to the god Horus.

This fact, however, caused controversy. It was pitting Khafre's allegiance to Horus against the growing Cult of Ra, not far away in Helipolis.[12] Kings no longer associated pyramids with the afterlife. The afterlife was once believed to be a divine kingdom that was represented as a type of idealistic heaven where only kings and pure hearts could go. Instead, the Fourth Dynasty represented a change in this idea, formulated the notion that the afterlife was a familiar place, taking the semblance of Earth.[13] Religious rituals were notoriously conservative, from what historians know, and there is much to be desired from current known records.

The Old Kingdom saw a rise in the preservation of the deceased, making the preparation of bodies much more complex. The position of embalmer was created, and their jobs were solely to prepare a corpse in private. There were three ways to mummify a body: 1) Stucco- the body would be wrapped in fine linen and then covered in stucco plaster, the features of the body (including the face) were remodeled in the plaster;[14] 2) Linen- the body would be wrapped in linen, which was sometimes treated with natron (a mixture of multiple sodium carbonates [15]) and the linens would be treated with resin so that the features of the body could be modeled; and 3) Defleshing- removing all flesh and wrapping the bones in linens.[16] Generally, organs were removed which were then put into jars that would accompany the body in the tomb, and the inside of the body flushed out.

Tombs in the Fourth Dynasty changed drastically. "Unimpressive" graves did not satisfy the elites, meaning they would settle for smaller structures if the interior was decorated. Hieroglyphic writings were important to elites because, one, it was a lavish display of wealth and, two, it guided their souls to the afterlife. The Fourth Dynasty, however, did not have these writings. Instead, the tomb was deeper and super-structures were larger. After the Giza pyramid complex, later generations of tombs were more reasonably sized. After Middle Kingdom, royals abandoned pyramids, they preferred graves that were carved into living rock of the Upper Egyptian mountains.

A replication of an Old Kingdom mummy, as reconstructed by Emory University

^Roth, Ann Macy (1993). "Social Change in the Fourth Dynasty: The Spatial Organization of Pyramids, Tombs, and Cemeteries". Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt. 30: 33–55. doi:10.2307/40000226. JSTOR40000226.

Old Kingdom of Egypt

In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2686–2181 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid builders of the Fourth Dynasty—King Sneferu perfected the art of pyramid-building and the pyramids of Giza were constructed under the kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Egypt attained its first sustained peak of civilization—the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley.

Khufu

Khufu, known to the Greeks as Cheops, was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period. Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but many other aspects of his reign are poorly documented.

Menkaure

Menkaure, was an ancient Egyptian king (pharaoh) of the 4th dynasty during the Old Kingdom, who is well known under his Hellenized names Mykerinos and Menkheres. According to Manetho, he was the throne successor of king Bikheris, but according to archaeological evidences he rather was the successor of king Khafre. Menkaure became famous for his tomb, the Pyramid of Menkaure, at Giza and his beautiful statue triads, showing the king together with his wives Rekhetre and Khamerernebty.

Khafra

Khafra was an ancient Egyptian king (pharaoh) of the 4th dynasty during the Old Kingdom. He was the son of Khufu and the throne successor of Djedefre. According to the ancient historian Manetho, Khafra was followed by king Bikheris, but according to archaeological evidences he was rather followed by king Menkaure. Khafra was the builder of the second largest pyramid of Giza. The view held by modern Egyptology at large remains that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC for Khafra. There is not much known about Khafra, except the historical reports of Herodotus, writing 2,000 years after his life and who describes him as a cruel and heretic ruler, who kept the Egyptian temples closed after Khufu had sealed them.

Egyptian pyramids

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt. As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids. Most were built as tombs for the country's pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.

Huni

Huni was an ancient Egyptian king and the last pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty during the Old Kingdom period. Following the Turin king list, he is commonly credited with a reign of 24 years, ending c. 2600 BC.

Shepseskaf

Shepseskaf was the sixth and last pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom. He reigned 6 to 8 years starting circa 2510 BC. The only activities firmly datable to his reign are the completion of the temple complex of the Pyramid of Menkaure and the construction of its own mastaba tomb at South Saqqara, the Mastabat al-Fir’aun, "stone bench of the pharaoh".

Pyramid of Menkaure

The Pyramid of Menkaure is the smallest of the three main Pyramids of Giza, located on the Giza Plateau in the southwestern outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. It is thought to have been built to serve as the tomb of the fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Menkaure.

Giza pyramid complex

The Giza pyramid complex is an archaeological site on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. It includes the three Great Pyramids, the Great Sphinx, several cemeteries, a workers' village and an industrial complex. It is located in the Western Desert, approximately 9 km (5 mi) west of the Nile river at the old town of Giza, and about 13 km (8 mi) southwest of Cairo city centre.

Hetepheres I

Queen Hetepheres I was a Queen of Egypt during the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt.

Ankhhaf

Prince Ankhhaf was an Egyptian prince and served as vizier and overseer of works to the Pharaoh Khufu, who was Ankhhaf's half-brother. He lived during Egypt's 4th Dynasty.

Sneferu

Sneferu, well known under his Hellenized name Soris, was the founding pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom. Estimates of his reign vary, with for instance The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt suggesting a reign from around 2613 to 2589 BCE, a reign of 24 years, while Rolf Krauss suggests a 30-year reign, and Rainer Stadelmann a 48-year reign. He built at least three pyramids that survive to this day and introduced major innovations in the design and construction of pyramids.

Khafre Enthroned

Khafre Enthroned is a funerary statue of the Pharaoh Khafre, who reigned during the Fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt. It is now located in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The construction is made of anorthosite gneiss, a valuable, extremely hard, and dark stone brought 400 miles down the Nile River from royal quarries. This highlights Khafre's importance and power as a ruler. The statue was carved for the Pharaoh's valley temple near the Great Sphinx, a part of the necropolis used in funeral rituals. This Old Kingdom statue has an important function in Egyptian tombs as substitute abodes for the Pharaoh's ka—the life force that accompanied a person with a kind of other self. After death, the ka leaves the body into the afterlife, but still needs a place to rest: the statue.

Cemetery GIS

Cemetery GIS is a necropolis in the Giza Plateau. It derives its name from its proximity to pyramid G I (Khufu). The tombs are located on the south side of that pyramid and hence the name G I South Cemetery. Reisner thought the cemetery a continuation of the G7000 cemetery which is part of the Giza East Field. The construction postdates that of mastaba G 7070 of Sneferukhaf. Junker dated the cemetery to the reign of Menkaure based on the presence of granite powder thought to derive from the dressing of the second pyramid at Giza. Reisner allows for a possible construction date dating to the reign of Khafre.

Khufu Statuette

The Khufu Statuette or the Ivory figurine of Khufu is an Ancient Egyptian statue. Historically and archaeologically significant, it was found in 1903 by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie during excavation of Kom el-Sultan in Abydos, Egypt. It depicts the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu, a member of the Fourth dynasty, and the builder of the Great Pyramid.